HOGAN'S HEROES INTERACTIVE The Misplaced Messenger
by The Curious Kills
Summary: You've always loved history, but when you are pulled back in time to 1940's Germany and are mistaken for an American Air Force pilot, you find yourself helpless and in danger of losing your life. AN INTERACTIVE ADVENTURE! ENJOY!
1. Part 1

**HOGAN'S HEROES - The Misplaced Messenger**

**PART 1**

The time is 12:03 AM. The date is January 19, 2011. You are lying in your bedroom, the light still on, and in your hands sits a book you got for the holidays last year. Its title – "War Airplanes of World War II". You've always been a bit of a history buff, and your parents know this. Your eyes are shining with enthusiasm as you read the specs on the then-revolutionary Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Supermarine Spitfire XVI, the Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3…

Suddenly you look up. A strange ringing has just begun to swell in your ears. You get the sensation of diving to the bottom of an eighteen-foot swimming pool as the world begins to shift and change around you…

The next thing you know, you're outside lying on sodden mud and squelching leaves, dark firs obscuring the night sky above you. You hear the humming of airplanes going back and forth across the atmosphere, and the baying of dogs slowly registers as you stumble to your feet, moving your jaw around to clear out the residual ringing.

Your clothes are different, too. Instead of your camouflage jammies and stocking feet (one a checked black-and-red "No Nonsense", one a bright lime-green designer embroidered with a cartoon skeleton), you find that you are wearing the standard GI wear of an American Air Force pilot. The barking gets louder, and as two growling, snarling German Shepherds plunge out of the foliage and start bounding toward your position, you turn and run instinctively.

It's dark and you can't see more than three feet in front of you. Your left foot gets snagged on a low-hanging, broken branch and you fall on your face. The dogs catch up to you and continue barking, snapping at your arms and face in a vicious warning. Your hand clutches something tightly; you peek through the darkness and dog fur to realize that it's a German Phrasebook.

Shouts rise in a guttural, familiar language and flashlight beams dance in front of you.

**If you choose to make a run for it, go to Part 2.**

**If you choose to submit to your captors, go to Part 3.**


	2. Part 2

**PART 2**

Desperately, you try once more to run and get back inside your house, wherever it is. There's a gun in the top of the hall closet, maybe you lock the door and get to it before you're caught again. As the shouts become more aggressive, the dogs howl and bark even louder, and you feel teeth sink into your right ankle. You fall back down again in defeat, and the teeth are removed as soggy footsteps come closer.

**Go to Part 3**


	3. Part 3

**PART 3**

The shouts escalate, and a hand grabs your arm unkindly as flashlights glare into your eyes and momentarily blind you. You are pulled to your feet and patted down as German phrases are tossed back and forth. You can understand a little bit of what they are saying, thanks to your fanatic fascination with anything to do with World War Two, but your captors speak it so quickly and fluently that you are quite lost either way.

You catch the words "Airplane", "American", "Prisoner" and something that sounds like the word for "Shoot". You wonder what the hell is going on. Is this a spontaneous reenactment or something? You vow to never ever enjoy another reality TV show or Improv Everywhere video again. In the changing light, you manage to glimpse that your captors are wearing the old Nazi uniforms you've seen in books. You swallow nervously, look down at the dogs, look up at the hard, unkind faces around you, and your mind grapples with another, seemingly insane possibility.

Have you traveled back in time!

Suddenly a question is posed to you.

"Are you zee American pilot?"

**If you say yes, go to Part 4**

**If you say no, go to Part 5**


	4. Part 4

**PART 4**

"Y-yes," you say uncertainly. You hope you sounded convincingly brave and confident, but you seriously doubt it. The German questioner glares at you will narrow eyes, and you know you are really in for it.

The next few days are a whirlwind for you – interrogation, examination, the whole nine yards. The name you go by is Major Jackson O'Neill, which so happened to be the real name of a real USAF pilot you once read about. Despite your best efforts to keep out of trouble, your head is pounding by the time you arrive, handcuffed in a drab green truck, at the gates of a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp called a "stalag".

You are ordered to get out and are taken to see the Kommandant of the stalag. When you first lay eyes on him, this man seems like he sprang right out of one of those old black-and-whites you used to love so much. However, as you watch the way he moves and speaks, you begin to forget your fear and apprehension, which are replaced with casual curiosity and a very tiny hint of amusement.

He gives a very long speech in clipped, accented English, pacing around you as though he is trying to imitate a hawk but can't because the avian he really calls to mind is the common jackdaw. Finally, Kommandant Klink gives a shout and a large, fat sergeant comes rushing in. His name is Shultz, and he is ordered to take you to Barrack No. 2.

Sergeant Shultz ushers you outside with surprising gentleness and you begin to feel a bit less afraid of this whole set-up. The fact that you are so far from your own time, of course, continues to bother you, only made worse as you are escorted across the grounds under the watchful eyes of Nazi guards and a small number of scattered, inquisitive POW's who give you a suspicious, curious stare as you proceed into Barrack 2.

**Go to Part 6**


	5. Part 5

**PART 5**

"No!" You insist furiously. You don't care what it looks like, you are NOT playing this game with these nuts! You tell them your name. "I don't care if this is going all over Youtube!" you shout with angry frustration, "I don't care if this goes all over every media website and alien veiwscreen across the known universe! I am not playing!"

The German soldier glares at you narrowly for a moment, and then a leather-padded strike across your face sends your head spinning. You catch your breath, and tears spring to your eyes in reflex to the spreading sting across your cheek.

"I ask vonce more," the man tells you, illustrating with one stiff, raised finger, "Are you zee American pilot?"

You are tempted to strike out, to scream, to run away and call the cops, to do SOMETHING…. But deep inside, you know this is no longer a game. With a tiny bit of hesitation, you seal your fate with a nod of your head.

**Go to Part 4**


	6. Part 6

**PART 6**

Inside Barrak 2, there are even more prisoners inside. With a tiny bit of smug satisfaction, you identify in your mind their nationality and rank by the clothing they wear and the insignia on their uniforms. One, a tall, dark-haired American colonel, stands up and eyes you with sharp brown eyes. After a second's pause, he turns to Shultz with an air of friendly conversation.

"So, Schultz, who've you brought us this time?"

You blink in surprise at his tone. No matter how kind Schultz may seem, he's still wearing a Nazi German uniform! However, Schultz doesn't even bat an eye.

"A new prisoner!" the sergeant announces in a resonant baritone, his r's rolled magnificently, "His name is Major Jackson O'Neill, and he has been assigned to zees barrak."

"You don't say," The American smiles pleasantly at you, and you start feeling a little better, despite the fact that everyone else in the barrack is glaring at you with mass distrust, spearheaded by the small, dark eyes of a French aviator. You give back a quicksilver twitch at the corner of your mouth, hoping it passes for a fairly confident smile.

"Well," continues the colonel, "Don't you worry, Schultz, we'll make him feel right at home. Won't we, boys?" he asks of the group behind him, and a few shouts and catcalls reply in positive. You wonder.

So does Schultz, apparently, his glass-blue eyes looking at the hodge-podge assortment rather dubiously. "Please, Colonel Hogan, don't teach him any bad tricks. Please!"

Hogan smiles disarmly and gives a small laugh. "We'll be good, Schultz, we promise. Tell you what," he says, slinging an arm over the massive guard's shoulders as though he were a comrade, "If there is any trouble, you can have fifty percent of any sweets the Red Cross send in this month. Okay?"

"Oh, Colonel Hogan, really?" asks Schultz, like a little boy who's been promised a pony for Christmas.

"Really," Hogan promises, and he ushers the guard outside. As soon as he closes the wooden door, he looks at you almost apologetically.

"I thought he'd never leave," he tells you, and you laugh slightly, half-heartedly as the butterflies in your stomach suddenly change their mind and turn into beached salmon. Hogan leads you toward the stove, which, after a fifteen-minute stroll through the nippy German spring air, is a welcome position. "So, O'Neill, what outfit are you from?"

"Um, the Seventy-first," you answer randomly.

Colonel Hogan's eyes light up like rocks in a fire. "No kidding! Me too! Say, how's old MacNair doing?"

You hesitate. You have no idea if there was a MacNair in the seventy-first. You look around you, and try to think of what to say.

**To carry on the conversation, go to Part 7.**

**To be honest, go to Part 8.**


	7. Part 7

**PART 7**

You quickly make up something. "Oh, he's fine," you reply, "Just wonderful."

Something wanders across Hogan's eyes, something dark and suspicious, but in a flash, it's gone again and his smile's back, bigger than ever. You are irresistibly reminded of the Cheshire cat.

The conversation continues pretty much without event. Pulling from your grandfather's memories, you tell a complicated, humorous tale about what life is like serving with "Ian MacNair". Eventually, Hogan excuses himself and you are left alone among the suspicious POWs who stand there staring at you with downright malevolence.

It takes about a week for anyone to speak to you besides the guards, and even then, the conversations are clipped and dull. About a month later, Corporal Newkirk, a British RAF pilot, comes to you and proposes a plan of escape. You get away free, but Newkirk is captured only five minutes after you two have left the stalag. Eventually, you make your way to Switzerland, where you live out the rest of your life in a small, nondescript village, wondering what you did wrong and why you can never return home.

**THE END**


	8. Part 8

**PART 8**

You frown a little with thought, and then you look up at Colonel Hogan and tell him what you can of the truth.

"I don't know any MacNair, sir," you respond.

Hogan looks very suspicious. He bends in closer, glaring with suspicion. "You were in the 71st and you don't know Lieutenant MacNair?"

You are starting to have second thoughts.

**Stick to the truth? Go to Part 9.**

**Maybe you're doing this all wrong? Go to part 7.**


	9. Part 9

**PART 9**

"I'm sorry, sir," you compromise, "I was only in the 71st a short time before I came over here. Maybe he transferred out."

Hogan's suspicion suddenly vanished, and his smile returns, almost a little apologetically. "That's alright, soldier," he tells you comfortingly, "That was just a trick question. We have to do these things, you know, to keep out moles and the like. You understand."

"Of course, sir," you respond, this time with a genuine smile. You may actually be able to make it here… until you find a way back home, that is. Hogan excuses himself and turns to walk away. Suddenly, he pauses and swings back around again, leaning forward confidentially.

"Incidentally, did any of the guys back in 71st tell you about Sergeant Riley and the moose egg?"

You hesitate. Is this another trick question? Could be, but he seems so sincere….

**Trick Question? Try your luck in Part 10.**

**If moose eggs sound familiar, go to part 11.**


	10. Part 10

**PART 10**

Colonel Hogan has tried you once before, and besides, something tells you that your acceptance into the pack was a bit too easy after all. "Moose egg?" you ask with a blank and honest face, "I never heard about that one, either."

"Oh, never mind," Hogan laughs, turning back around, "You're clean. LeBeau will show you your bunk." Entering a makeshift office separated off from the rest of the narrow building by another thin, wooden door, you are left alone among total strangers whose thoughts at this moment are impossible to read. Strangely enough, they seem to be a little less hostile now that you've talked to the colonel.

As you get to know each of the prisoners, you find yourself wondering again why everyone seems to be so concerned about moles and secrecy. Nobody likes being spied upon, sure, but why drill a new prisoner twice in one day just to make sure they're not a secret agent? What could you possibly hide in a prisoner-of-war camp, where everyone who's not a Nazi is forced to live in a wooden-and-electrified-barbed-wire fishbowl?

Something strange is going on.

**Proceed to Part 12**


End file.
